BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS TO NEW YEAR’S DAY, 2017-18) — Let’s kiss another year goodbye. Let the kiss be welcomed and enjoyed, without a trace presumption or perfunction. THE PLANET saw, endured, and welcomed many changes this years — privately, personally, and professionally — and each was or will ultimately prove to be a good one, for we have learned that the more things stay the same, the more they change. It works the other way around, also.

Our late, great friend, novelist Hollis Hodges — like Brooklyn Dodger first baseman Gil Hodges, a native of Indiana — used to hold court as the resident wise man at Heaton Hall in Stockbridge. THE PLANET was a regular at his sessions, one on one, old age speaking to middle. As a man who had lived through and been to war, alcoholism, divorce, estrangement from family, and more, he had seen enough ups and downs of life to last 28 lifetimes — especially the downs. He nonetheless showed a resolution not to be defeated by circumstance or wallow in failure. He successfully wrote novels with major publishers, two of them bought by Hollywood and one making it to the big screen. It wasn’t all roses in June, however.

Hodges reminded THE PLANET of Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist. In his 90th year, Tolstoy experienced a crises of faith. The man who had written War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and a number of other towering works that alone would have defined a stellar legacy, reflected on his life and concluded that he had done nothing. He thought he had failed. Hodges traveled down that same conceptual road, as, truly, we all must do when reckoning both with Life and with a life. The confrontation is never easy, for, along with triumphs and the oases of happiness, life contains too many mistakes, regrets, disappointments, and losses. How do we deal with them? Hodges followed Tolstoy. He wrestled with his demons.

When a person does that in resolution and determination, the demons ALWAYS lose. It makes the battle no less easy and many shy away, but it provides a large measure of lasting comfort and solace, those two twins of fulfillment and cousin of memory. Hodges emerged from the match victorious, irrespective of how he felt about it. Feelings as information are useful, but they are notoriously unreliable both as the basis of action in the present moment (which is all we ever have) or to resolve and come to terms with the past. THE PLANET must add that we never directly asked him if he had won, or if he felt he had won or lost. It didn’t matter. We knew. Hollis Hodges took up the task of living, and he lived it to the full. That’s victory.

THE PLANET shares this story with a secondary generosity in mind. We want to pass along one of Hodges’ favorite sayings, a personal mantra he would recite with the conviction of a man about to die for a cause. The gem consisted of three little words, ones we have made our own:

“It’s all okay.”

Even when it’s not okay, it is okay because time invariably proves it so. Think of the saying as a form of universal forgiveness of the kind associted with the words “God” and “mercy” and provides the basis for faith in universal and unconditional forgiveness for what we call sin. Afterlife or no, time sweeps us along and dissolves our earthly coil back into the atoms from which we derived. The recyling is certain and, at the risk of characterizing the ineffable to the point of caricature, benign. Only the form of it remains anyone’s guess.

Allow THE PLANET, then, to wish you all a Happy Christmas and the best of New Years. Friend or foe and everyone neither, both, or in between, we repeat the words that end every PLANET column: “Love to All.”

And remember, no matter what life throws at you, it’s all okay.

We shall reform here on THE PLANET after New Year’s Day. Enjoy the break but feel free to come here in the interim with your comments. Communication at this address is always a two-way affair.

157 Responses to “‘IT’S ALL OKAY: THE PLANET’s CHRISTMAS CAROL”

Let us not forget the Community Preservation Tax added on, nor the huge increase coming in 2018 for the high school we didn’t need and can’t afford. Both of which Recliner Tyer supported. And the boring broadsheet called it a small increase. Pittsfield’s rate of increase was through the roof compared to Lenox.

There is supposed to be an exemption for seniors but when I read the law it stated the senior had to be below a certain poverty level. If you do qualify you still have to pay the tax then apply for a rebate, you only have a short window of time to apply and the last time I checked with the tax collectors office they didn’t have rebate forms and they didn’t know when to apply for the rebate. We got shafted again.

Yes, so sad Dusty, that companies will start hiring and expanding again. That companies will stop moving out of the country. That people will no longer need to depend on food stamps to survive. It is truly a dark time for our country.

People are getting the message though that we need to put another Democrat (Progressive) in the White House to return the country to the glory days of punishing companies and encouraging them to leave the country so that everyone will be forced to live on food stamps and depend on big government. It’s only a matter of time before we return to that paradise of government being all powerful and telling us what to do and taking care of us as long as we let them get big and all powerful. As long as we look the other way and ignore government corruption like the media encourages us to do when Democrats are in power. It’s only a matter of time before we return to that Shangri-La.

Trump will make him and his rich buddie friends,ten times richer down the road, companies always control their roll. Downturn in the economy, they’ll lay off people, increases prices or move or sell off(stock) buy and sell,called supply and demand always driven by gold futures Inflation and Higher interest rates, so dollar doesn’t devalue,Trump and Ryan took care of that with his trillion dollar tax bonus for the Boyz. They’re all in in together, almost every Politician in Washington, including former pols, like the Clintons with see tax windfalls. Happy New Year Middle Class.

Just look what the Boyz and the Girlz in Berkshire County have done to the economy here….oh, that’s right, we don’t actually have an economy here. Dan V. and many on this site have said so before. We have a regular Walmart for shopping as the Berkshire Mall is teetering on the edge (to the delight of Progressives who hate malls and big box stores), Businesses continue to face future uncertainly (Crane in Dalton for one) while the latest casualty has been Country Curtains.

People like Dusty and Thomas More live in denial….retirees no doubt who are no longer competing for the few jobs that do exist here in Berkshire County.

None-the-less, I’ll thank you for myself and Dusty and all the folk like us for the enlightenment that you offer. We do have our collective heads in the sand. If only those rotten progressives would all die, you would be back in your Utopian world and have your old job back that would take care of your 12 year molars.

2018 will bring an expanded more powerful swamp and a much stronger dose of koolaid as the lower class fight for Trump right to be above the law or to make him a god,just going to sit and watch Trump toy with as he said….the stupids.The wealthy own America today and lies rule the land as discernment has been replaced by nationalism.

That’s why crime has been out of control here in Berkshire County what with prostitution rings, drugs, and general mayhem due to the lack of jobs here in Berkshire County for quite some time which Progressives have no interest in addressing. Why no concern about local crime related to poverty and lack of jobs, but BIG concern when Trump does something to potentially stimulate the economy?

Mayor Tyer is hiding,my taxes up 33% under Tyer…is she closing PHS,CROSBY,ALLENDALE…..we are losing people by over 1000 per year…..retired 78 year olds working everywhere to pay Pittsfield Taxes..
..We need to shrink ,shrink ,shrink….more people working at school department than last year…..Mccandless is driving retired people out